


if you go out in the woods today

by sapphicish



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Violent Thoughts, and you can wrestle that hc from my cold dead hands, this fic is weird and so is sonia, this isn't pertinent to the fic but sonia is a big ol bisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 03:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15185864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: Kaz eyes her; then, after a second or two of scrutiny, she softens. Sonia predicts it before it happens. Kaz likes her; most of them do. And why wouldn't they? She has charm, in a 'rich snob' sort of way. She's been told that countless times before—useful, really, if not a little insulting that that is what everyone thinks she consists of. Rich snobbiness and nothing more. Nothing deeper.





	if you go out in the woods today

**Author's Note:**

> i love sonia!!!! she is a complicated violent lady and I Love Her!!!
> 
> the title is from "teddy bear picnic", a children's song that i'm PRETTY sure sonia hums while she's gathering things to kill don with in 5x05 outside of the car before he knocks her out, and the fact that she hums THAT of all things is something i think about Every Day Of My Life™
> 
> also: the fact that she is so happy after killing someone or while planning to kill someone or cleaning up after killing someone that she HUMS is...truly...something!

“I could cut that for you, if you like.” It slips out of her mouth one morning over the table at breakfast of its own volition; she's spent far too long quietly watching Kaz make irritated movements with her hand and mouth, flicking or blowing her hair out of her face, tucking it behind an ear, eventually pulling it up in a loose ponytail just to be done with it. She's pretty, Kaz, in a _rough_ sort of way, and Sonia often loses herself in her mind thinking about how much she could do with this woman if only she had a little makeup she was willing to share at hand. A bit of eyeliner here, some concealer there, and lipstick...a deep pink, maybe, not so dark or so light as to be too eyecatching. No, Kaz is slow, neutral colors; fading in, fading out. She knows this about her the same way she knows Allie is warm, bright tones and Delphine from D block is cool, dark tones.

You can tell so much about a person by everything from the type of makeup that they choose to wear to the type of makeup that they _should_ wear; it's a pity so few people realize that.

Kaz blinks, looks up at her. Raises her eyebrows, after a moment – she has nice eyebrows, too. Nicer with a little shaping, a little darkening. But Sonia will save that for next time.

“Sorry?” She sounds a little incredulous. Sonia smiles; down the table, she hears Ruby snicker. 

“Your hair,” she says. “It's gotten a little long, hasn't it?”

Kaz eyes her; then, after a second or two of scrutiny, she softens. Sonia predicts it before it happens. Kaz likes her; most of them do. And why wouldn't they? She has charm, in a 'rich snob' sort of way. She's been told that countless times before—useful, really, if not a little insulting that that is what everyone thinks she consists of. Rich snobbiness and nothing more. Nothing deeper.

“Yeah,” Kaz says. “I guess it has.”

–

Sonia's fondness for hair develops in her youth.

It begins with her mother, in fact; begins with early mornings where the cold distance between them thawed enough that she was let in on the ritual: brushing, braiding, a neat bun or loose curls for whatever situation called for each. Little Sonia Elizabeth Harris learned quick even then; too roughly and the ritual would end, and she wouldn't be able to run the brush through her mother's rich golden curls and imagine that it was as nice as her hair would be one day, except her hair was better because it was such a deep brown as to be considered _black_ in the right lighting, like the night.

(Sonia Elizabeth was never scared of the dark like so many children were. She thrived in it.)

Sonia Elizabeth was twenty when her mother died, and her hair went with her. It was, coincidentally, two hours after she went to her stylist and reluctantly let a new girl cut her hair in place of the usual woman. The fact that it's on the same day of her mother's death is probably, in hindsight, the only reason she remembers it at all. The replacement made a mistake – cut her bangs too short and too ragged, so that she looked like some shaggy idiot. In that moment, she couldn't stop looking at the glittering silver scissors set aside, thinking that she could reach for them. Just a little. A little cut, to remind this girl that she was being paid to do a good job, not some horrific thing like _this._

But she didn't, because Sonia Elizabeth was a very well-behaved girl, and well-behaved girls didn't cut their stylists for mere mistakes. They _did,_ however, give cool, disapproving glances as they flounced out; and they _did,_ however, go home and fix their hair themselves because clearly no one else was reliable enough to complete such a simple job.

It isn't odd, to think that. She knows that, is safe in that knowledge. Who _wouldn't_ be angry at such unintentional ruination to themselves when they'd paid for the exact opposite?

So she got the call, of course; a car crash, or more accurate a spill over a cliff into a lake, and Sonia knows why it happened but she asks anyway. And of course the answer is wine.

At the funeral, she does cry; she does allow it, just a little, and of course it is sincere even though she's mostly thinking about making sure she doesn't look too cold or impersonal or not upset at all at her own mother's funeral. (She knows her mother likely wouldn't spare the same courtesy if it was the other way around. She doesn't mind too much, not anymore.)

So Sara Harris goes into the ground, and Sonia Elizabeth gets rid of the 'Elizabeth'. It's easy to get rid of a name, even more a middle name; all you have to do is never mention it.

It is easy to get rid of all things that way, she finds.

–

“Not too short,” Kaz mutters at her in the mirror in Sonia's cell, watching her closely. She does have a pair of scissors in hand, so she supposes Kaz's trust in her only goes so far.

Sonia smiles beatifically. “Not too short,” she agrees. “You would look _dreadful_ with short hair.”

Kaz snorts as she makes the first cut, staying very still. “I had short hair as a teenager. Trust me, I _know._ ”

Sonia hums. “See?” she murmurs, nods to Kaz's reflection once a few minutes have passed in amicable silence. “Starting to look better already.”

“You're pretty good at this,” Kaz says, neck tipping and bending under Sonia's hand as she guides her head where she needs to be. Kaz doesn't fight back, doesn't struggle or ask questions, and _that_ there is the thing that clicks into place, that familiar feeling that makes her smile widen. She could reach around and clench her hands around Kaz's throat, see what happens; feel the breath leave her, see the life exit her eyes like a light in a window snuffed abruptly out. Feel the pulse thrumming under her fingertips like a little rabbit running away, away.

Frantic. Scared.

But it is, as always, the same as when she is cooking and has a knife in her hands and she thinks that it would slide as easily through human flesh as it would through animal; or when she is driving and knows that a simple twist of the wheel could send the vehicle careening into passersby, turning soft pliable bodies broken and gnarled beneath heavy tires. It is the possibility she thinks about, and beyond that there is no desire to actually do it.

(Usually.)

Instead, there is just the knowledge – she has the power. She has the upper hand.

And she, as always, is _trusted._

And, anyway, she likes Kaz. She would be remiss to try anything. That and she has no intention of being put in the slot for the first time. _Ever._

Maybe – _maybe_ – she's willing to admit that she wouldn't win in a physical fight with most of the women here, either. She's always been perfectly fine with that; she has other strengths, after all. Strengths that easily outdo any sort of bumbling nonsense the girls in here like to display like wild, rabid animals.

“I have some experience,” she says. “What, did you think I _only_ knew makeup?”

Kaz laughs. Sonia can feel it under her hands as she snips away at thin strands of dirty blonde, can see Kaz's amusement much more clearly in the slightly stained mirror. “I wouldn't dare think that,” she says lightly, leans back into the chair and Sonia's hands.

Sonia smiles, tastes something sweet on her tongue; it is a certain brand of capitulation, control relinquished. She is in charge, and she does not have to fight for it, and Kaz does not have to fight for it.

They are just two women talking about hair and makeup.

“Good,” Sonia says, runs her fingers briefly through her hair and then finishes cutting it, moves on to twist one of the braids Kaz likes so much around the back of her head from the front. “That's good.”

Kaz closes her eyes. Sonia thinks briefly that it is the ultimate surrender.

She finishes, smiles at Kaz in the mirror and squeezes her shoulder to let her know she's finished. “All done.”

Kaz's eyes flick open, and Sonia is almost disappointed by it, but she reels that disappointment back in and steps back, hands on her hips. “With the limited tools available to me, I think I've done quite a decent job of it, really.”

Kaz examines herself in the glass, leaning in and then out and then standing, turning to Sonia with a little grin. “You did,” she says. “Thanks, Sonia. I'll be sure to come to you next time.”

Sonia smiles, neat and perfect and with a little teeth. “Feel free to. And bring your friends, if you want to. They could use certain touch-ups too, from what I've seen.”

Kaz laughs. “I'll let them know you think so.” She gives Sonia a little nudge that comes off as purely friendly as she passes, and Sonia dips out of the cell so that she can watch Kaz go, tilting her head thoughtfully.

Yes, she _could_ get used to this; the Top Dog handing over all her power all at once, knowing that the woman standing right behind her has so many tools at her disposal to ruin her.

And like all the times before, it doesn't matter that she knows she won't actually do anything, because it does not do to make enemies in this place, certainly not enemies in positions of power.

What matters is the _feeling._

–

When she agrees to shave Helen's head, she mourns it, the loss of all that pretty hair – pretty like her mother's, not quite as long or as gold but still similar enough that she is sad, briefly. And then she puts the razor to Helen's nape, and it occurs to her that this is just as good; different, but still _good._ Like Samson and Delilah, stripping strength away bit by bit – well. Of course Helen is her _friend,_ of course she doesn't want to take her strength and throw her to the wolves.

Of course not.

And then Helen tries to blackmail her. And that's _adorable,_ in a way, it really is.

Except that she doesn't respond well to such things, and isn't that such a shame for Helen.

(After, when Sonia is standing over her dear friend crumpled on the ground, blood dripping at her temple, she thinks that maybe that's all it really comes down to. Samson. Delilah. The fall.)


End file.
